Nescire aude.

October 05, 2014

Literary expose of the century!

John Barton Wolgamot gave his name to a Society in Michigan, founded, more or less, by Keith Waldrop; he also wrote and published (via vanity presses) the poem that was to provide the text and title of Robert Ashley's composition In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women. The same text was also published earlier under the title In Sara Haardt Were Men and Women, and he had been working, when he died, on a third work, also with the same text, but with a third title, Beacons of Ancestorship, that later became the title of a Tortoise album (who also named a track after the previous work, with "Men" and "Women" transposed). Waldrop reports that Wolgamot sent copies of the first two to Mencken, and that those copies were given to the Enoch Pratt Free Library (a catalog search on their website for "Wolgamot" does not currently give any results). For unknown reasons, the Encyclopedia of American Poetry identifies Wolgamot as a literary historian. Aside from that curiosity, basically everything one can find online about Wolgamot concurs with the information given in the poetry foundation link, a recollection by Waldrop (information substantially reproduced in this interview with Waldrop, though he can't quite keep his story straight). Very little actually goes beyond what's contained there; no Ashley or Tortoise fans, for instance, report having actually gotten their mitts on a copy in some library somewhere, or even having confirmed Waldrop's claim that the book is referred to in any account of Mencken's library. The story, or parts of it, is passed around; it comes up, for instance, in Kyle Gann's book on Ashley.

It seems quite probable to me that there never was a Wolgamot; that the name was made up (the family name, perhaps, derived from Rosmarie Waldrop's mother's maiden name, Wohlgemuth?). Looking just at the poetry foundation link, the story is really just too pat. No further copies are extant—no one remembers Wolgamot's name at the first publisher's, and Waldrop buys the last remaining copy the second publisher has. No one is likely to look through all of Mencken's jottings to find the one that Waldrop refers to (without giving any bibliographical information). Waldrop describes the way Ashley's piece was made (reading one page/sentence in one breath, then the next, editing out the spaces between the readings), and later in the story, when he finally meets Wolgamot and tells him that the poem was set to music, the only things Wolgamot is recorded as having said in response are that "it was hard to imagine reading his book out loud", but that "'it would have to be a sort of'—he hesitated, considered—'well, a breathless reading'"—what a nice confirmation for Ashley! Immediately prior to that we get a hypothesis and confirmation much closer together:

Ashley had done a formal analysis of the book, in an elaborate chart, showing that the book is in four movements-there was no sign of this, no markings-four movements of equal length. I was not entirely convinced. But the first thing Wolgamot said was, “You realize, this is in four movements.” And Ashley immediately brought out his chart, which Wolgamot wouldn’t look at. Just as he had no interest at all in hearing the composition.

Note that in the interview, Wolgamot is reported as having found the reading of his piece so imaginable that he at one point actually contemplated it himself:

Which reminds me: when Wolgamot heard that in Bob's composition the text was actually spoken, he said that at one time he had thought of reading it out loud. "But then I decided against it," he said. "I suppose that—if you did read it—it would have to be a kind of, well, breathless reading."

How odd!

Early on, Waldrop writes that he "claimed that the work was a funeral piece for Sara Powell Haardt, intimating, however, that while Sara was Mencken’s on earth, she was Wolgamot’s in eternity"; in the paragraph before, Waldrop mentions a phone call between Mencken and Waldrop. Then, during the meeting between Waldrop and Wolgamot:

I asked him if he had ever met Mencken. He said he hadn’t but, “I talked to him on the phone once.” I said I supposed, then, he had never met Sara Powell Haardt, and I could see Ashley was remembering my silly theory. And Wolgamot said, “No, I never met Sara Powell Haardt. I used her name, because her last name’s Haardt and my middle name’s Bart.” But he went on, “Of course, in the book, I represent myself as having an illicit relation with her. In a book like this, there has to be some love interest.”

The encounter with Wolgamot reveals no information not already stated or speculated about earlier (sometimes immediately earlier); speculations, moreover, are always confirmed, never disconfirmed, so that Ashley and Waldrop's powers of analysis and perception are emphasized. And since their theories about the structure of the bizarre text are confirmed by the text's eccentric author to be correct, we are encouraged to believe that the structure really is there—as we might not so easily or successfully be encouraged if Waldrop's liner notes just asserted of a text attribute to Ashley or himself that it was in four parts and perfectly suited for a "breathless" reading (not just Ashley's eccentric choice but the result of recognition of just what the text requires). But I suspect that the text really is by Waldrop or Ashley and that the whole Wolgamot story is false, false, false! And obviously false, in fact, in a way that makes its repetition somewhat baffling.

I do question why no one seems to have seen a copy of the books. However, your evidence seems a little bit flimsy to begin to publicly write off the possibility that JBW existed or wrote those books, dramatically announcing 'hoax!'. I hope you are wrong. It seems unlikely that so many people could keep this a secret for so long. You could ask Mimi Johnson, you could ask Waldrop, you could even visit Mencken's archive. Personally, I'd like to see more evidence and less conjecture.

Here's one piece of evidence that does support his existence. The second entry states 'John Barton Wolgamot, died 1989, NYC'

I did ask Waldrop (Rosmarie), as indicated above, and she denied it (as indicated above), but she would, wouldn't she? I also don't think that very many people would have to keep it a secret at all, maybe, what, seven?

Ben, I re-read Ashley's notes and analysis of the book, and became more convinced that the books were real, but still unsure after reading your post. So, I also wrote to Keith Waldrop asking for any photographs of the book that might exist and whether one day they might be re-published. Rosmarie wrote back, told me that Keith was ill and that the book was available as the CD booklet, and avoiding the question of the photographs.

So, I did some more research. My first lead came back tonight, and I can now say that I am in possession of real evidence that these two books existed. Relieved and more than a little thrilled.

to ben w.:
Just do some reseach. John Wolgamot was the manager of Little Carnegie Theater in New York.

You can verify it with his nephew Bart Wolgamot -He lives in Albuquerque, NM .

The books were self-published, so he did not have a large number of copies, nor he was a well known author, because he was an eccentric man - just like his son! (I personally met his ~illegitimate~ son, back in 2003, and he had a copy of his dad's book).

...come to think of it, his son, Charlie was much like the father... eccentric, even a bit wierd, but had a cool sense of rhythm,(used to be a drummer) and he used his words most carefully.
Otherwise he was an artist -I saw some of his collages -quite unusual with historical facts and news headlines, and war memorabilia and sexy women.
But Charlie would never wantto talk about his father- he hated him.

Well, apparently the sleuths at LanguageHat have discovered the legitimacy of everything already, which I find disappointing in one respect and fascinating in another. It does still seem as if, purely from the materials put forth by the Waldrops, Ashley, et al., one could hardly conclude any otherwise than I'd done, though.